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AN 



ORATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 



OF THE CITY OF FALL RIVER, 



JULY 4, 1860. 



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BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMSj ISoy-lScb 



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ALMY & MILNE, DAILY NEWS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 

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In Common Council, Aug. 6, isoo. 
Ordered, That two thousand copies of the Oration delivered on the Fourth of July 
last, before the citizens of Fall River, by Hon. Charles Fkancis Adams, be 
printed for distribution, five hundred copies of which to be at the disposal of the 
Orator. 
Passed and sent up for concurrence. 

THOMAS T. POTTER, Clerk. 

In Board of aldermen, Aug. 8, i860. 
Concurred in. 

A. S. BALLARD, Ciiij Clerk. 



ORATION. 



Fellow Citizens : — After the lapse of eighty-four years, in 
which, at each recurring anniversary of this day, the brightest 
minds and the noblest hearts the land could boast, have strained 
their energies to elucidate the nature of the event we celebrate, 
as well as to honor the motives of those who became guides to 
our national success, I feel that I may be fully excused if I be- 
gin by presuming you sufficiently informed in regard to these 
matters. I shall not, therefore, attempt any detail of the history 
of' the period, neither shall I enlarge upon the principles or the 
purposes set forth in the immortal State paper, the words of 
which are so familiar to every American ear. The past will take 
care of itself. What we have to do is with the present hour. 
The noble patriots of former days have gone to their reward. 
What we must consider is our own duty. No nation will pros- 
per on recollections alone. Look at Greece and Rome, which 
have not fattened on the memory of thousands of years. The 
hour when men turn from the scenes around, only to fix their 
eyes on the dim distance behind them, when they strive, at the 
expense of their contemporaries, to magnify and exalt the hero- 
ism of their predecessors, dates the beginning of their effeminacy. 
The pages of Rome's greatest historian were not written until 
their author was a slave. There are persons among ourselves 
who actually believe that all virtue has departed, and that we 
have nought left but to sing pseans to the mighty dead. Whilst 
they delight to expatiate on the heroism that was, they as studi- 



ORATION. 



ously avert their faces from the consideration of what heroism is. 
Yet nothing is more clear than the fact that the great battle of 
freedom did not terminate with the year 1776. It rages now 
to-day, and will rage to-morrow, and every day so long as we 
live. And all the value of the devotion which we pay to the 
manes of the departed will be better tested by the firmness and 
the energy with which we carry on our own share of the continu- 
ing conflict, than by the zeal with Avhich we pile mountain high 
the flowers of rhetoric upon their graves. 

This is no moment for lamentation or despair at our own 
shortcomings. Admit, if you will, that much of the action of 
the past few years has done us, as a nation, no great honor ; 
admit that grave errors of principle have been sanctioned in high 
places ; admit that the popular sentiment has, at times, been 
dangerously perverted ; admit, in 'fine, that the cardinal doc- 
trines of our political faith, taught us in the great charter which 
annually, on this day, receives our seeming homage, are met 
with frigid coldness by many who officiate even the nearest to the 
shrine of our temple of Liberty. Admit all this, I say, if you 
please, and does it yet furnish the least excuse for faltering in 
the only course that can lead to nobler things ? No. The les- 
son of the day is addressed to us, and not to our fathers. It is 
ours to remove the wrong and reinstate the right. The sacred 
fire still smoulders, however much our high priests may have 
attempted to drown it with water. It is for us to revive the 
spark and to blow it once more into flame. And just in the pro- 
portion that our earnest efforts, under the favor of Divine Prov- 
idence, meet with success in surmounting the obstacles that still 
beset the path of freedom ; obstacles, be it observed, but little 
less formidable than those that engaged the energies of our 
fathers ; just in that degree shall we be entitled to claim that 
modern degeneracy has not reached us. So may we boast of 
laying the cap-stone of a monument more enduring than any of 
brass or marble to the memory of the signers of the fourth of 
July. 

Fellow citizens : I know not whether you have been made 



ORATION. 



aware of the fact, which I believe to be undeniable, that the 
Declaration of Independence is no longer received with unqual- 
ified favor in all parts of the United States alike. The reason 
is that it enunciates certain propositions touching human liberty 
as maxims beyond contradiction, the truth of which it is no longer 
convenient in some quarters to acknowledge. Hence has sprung 
up a reluctance to consider it without appending material modifi- 
cations of its natural and obvious meaning. It is not long since 
some of its leading ideas were sneered at, as glittering generali- 
ties, by one himself not devoid of a most brilliant fancy, whilst 
on almost every day of the year, new and strange theories of 
construction are advanced, intended to deprive them of their 
vital force. All this, doubtless, you must understand, has its 
origin in some powerful cause ; for it is not the natural tendency 
of men to grow less in love with freedom, or of parties to relax 
in the support of popular doctrines. When, therefore, we see dis- 
tinguished statesmen and orators, and learned lawyers, though 
still ready to heap empty laudation on the men, exercising their 
critical powers in nice refining about the principles of the 
Revolution, it is not unfair, I think, to presume some reason to 
be at the bottom of it, which it is advisable to bring to light. 
The outward Yisihle sign is reaction ; and, strangely enough, it 
appears most extensively in those forms of political association 
which once were identified with the most extreme notions, not of 
American liberty, but of revolutionary France. Here it is that 
we find people preferring to dwell more on the dangers than on 
the blessings of Liberty. Yes, and even more than that. Here 
it is that the novel constructions to which I have alluded find the 
most acceptance. Constructions which I hesitate not to pro- 
nounce utterly at variance with the authority of the historical 
record, and with the declarations of the chief actors in the con- 
test for Independence, as well as fatal to the perpetuity of really 
liberal institutions in every quarter of the globe. 

With some of these heresies I propose on this day to do battle 
with what power I may. And I engage not the less strenuously 
because they are put forth by persons speaking with authority. 



6 



ORATION. 



Conscious of the strength of my cause, I feel that with such ar- 
mor, even a dwarf may successfuly cope with the sons of Anak. 

1. And first of the first — What, fellow citizens, was the mov- 
ing cause of the Revolutionary conflict ? You will probably an- 
swer, as I do, that it was a question of Liberty. The Sovereign 
of Great Britain was trying to make slaves of our fathers, and 
they determined to be freemen. Hence the struggle and the 
victory. And hence it is that we are here to-day celebrating 
the declaration of our Independence. 

Not so fast, my friends. This is all a mistake. We are now 
told in a high quarter that it was a question of property. That 
this is the primal cause of all the great struggles of the world ; 
and that everything else is incidental. Listen to the words of 
one speaking with authority. " The right of pi'operty is sacred. 
And the first object of all human government is to make it se- 
cure. Life is always unsafe where property is not fully pro- 
tected. To secure private proverty was a principal object of 
Magna Charta. Our own Revolution was provoked by that 
slight invasion upon the right of property, which consisted in 
the exaction of a trifling tax." 

Such is the significant language of one learned in the law,* 
who, doubtless, had his reasons for magnifying what is after all, 
mainly the creation of law, the conventional understanding of 
men. Strange that Mr. Jefferson, in assigning the causes for 
the Revolution, in the Declaration of Independence, should have 
completely overlooked this one ! Still more strange that we 
should always have thought that there were other and higher 
ones. What does the Declaration say ? 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident ; that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, govern- 
ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 

*TIie passage is taken from an article publislied last year, understood to be from 
tlie pen of ttie present Attorney General of the United States. 



ORATION. 



people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new governments," 
&c., &c. 

Yes, you will observe that this paper says, " whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of ^7«ese ent^s." What 
ends, pray ? Why the ends " for which governments are insti- 
tuted among men.' And what are these ? They are, " the 
security of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Not a 
word here about property ! Not a word about " the first object 
of human government to make that secure." Not a word about 
the " slight invasion upon the right of property provoking the 
Revolution". ■ Mr. Jefferson forgot about this. He was thinking 
about something very different. What does he go on to say ? 

" The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history 
of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object 
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To 
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." 

He then proceeds to enumerate eighteen different kinds of 
facts ; as, for example, he had refused his assent to wholesome 
laws ; he had called together legislative bodies at unsuitable 
places, for the purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with 
his measures ; he had refused to cause others to be elected ; he 
had endeavored to check the growth of these States ; he had 
obstructed the administration of justice ; he had made judges 
dependent on his will ; he had erected a multitude of new offices ; 
he had kept up standing armies in time of peace ; he had abdi- 
cated government by waging war against us ; he had plundered 
our seas, ravaged our coasts, &c. ; he had transported large 
armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the work of tyranny ; 
he had constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high 
seas, to bear arms against their country ; he had endeavored to 
incite the savages against us, &c., &c. 

TJiese are the offences which are stated to have provoked the 
Revolution. They are all offences against the lives, and the lib- 
erties, and the right to pursue happiness, of the people of the 
Colonies. They but remotely relate to their property. The only 
allusion to that subject is found, mixed in with many other griev- 



ORATION. 



ances, in one of the articles, where it charges the sovereign with 
combining with others " for imposing taxes without our consent^ 
And even here, it will be observed, it is not the tax that is com- 
plained of, but the compulsion of the will which might otherwise 
be ready freely to grant it. 

How different is all this from the pretence that the revolution 
was provoked by a shght invasion of the right of property ! It 
was liberty that was in question, and nothing else. It was the 
right of self control ; it was security of life from all capricious 
and tyrannical sway ; it was the right of man to pursue happiness 
in any innocent way, that stimulated the hearts of the people to 
resistance. It was this holy motive that sanctioned all the pain- 
ful sacrifices which they endured, and hallowed every drop of 
blood which they shed as a votive offering to the future welfare 
of the human race. 

And yet we have been told, by high legal authority, that 
security to life is but an incident to the^Vs^ object of all human' 
government, which is the security of property ! Of course it fol- 
lows that security to liberty must fall still lower in the scale. 
It is not a good sign when the tendency of public men is to set 
up property — the most palpable of appeals to self-interest — above 
the higher sentiments of humanity. Who knows how far the 
best of us might yield to the temptation of making property of 
some of our neighbors, if we could only cover the pretension 
under the sacred shield of law ! But such a heresy finds no 
countenance in the great charter, the authority of which, even 
now, a large majority of this people still acknowledge. To us 
the moving cause of the Revolution yet remains ; and ! may 
it ever continue so to appear, a question of human liberty, and 
nothing; else. 

But here a second proposition, of an equally startling charac- 
ter, though from a different quarter, presents itself to our consid- 
eration. Conceding the fact that the Declaration of Independ- 
ence proclaimed a principle of Liberty, the question has been 
made, to whom of God's creatures it was intended to apply. 
Was it to all mankind, or only to a part ? If to all mankind, of 



ORATION. 9 



course it must have embraced those who were at the time in a 
state of slavery ; and it is well known that there were more or 
less of this class to be found in every one of the Colonies. Was 
it contemplated by the framers of the instrument, that the new 
doctrine should, either directly or remotely, affect their condition ? 
To this question a negative answer has been lately given by a 
learned and distinguished jurist*, whose opinions on all subjects are 
entitled to the highest consideration. He maintains that when 
the fathers declared, in solemn tones, " all men to be created 
free and equal, and to be endowed with certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," they 
intended to describe only the governing, — that is, the white 
European race, of which they constituted a part. The question 
of liberty, therefore, was not raised in general maintenance of a 
principle for the benefit of mankind, but was a mere domestic 
difference among the whites, to settle the relation in which the 
one part which had gone to America should be regarded by the 
other part that had remained in Europe. According to him, 
then, nothing contained in the paper is to be construed as forbid- 
ing either portion of these whites from exercising any and every 
right of domination and control which they can obtain, by good 
means or bad, over the people of all other races known on the 
globe. In short, to use the very words of the authority I am 
quoting, our fathers " did not imagine that that instrument was to 
change the personal or political relations of their slaves." 

Now I cannot stop at this place to point out to you the belit- 
tling nature of this new view of the action of our fathers. How 
mean they are made to appear in the boldness of their profession 
and the selfishness of their action. How false they stand, in 
boasting of resistance to tyranny in others, when they retain all 
the spirit of it within their own breasts. How dishonest they 
seem, in charging upon the king of Great Britain as offences 
justifying their refusal to obey his rightful authority, acts which 
in their nature bear no comparison as violations of human rights 

*'riie Attorney General of the United States under the last Administration, in a 
speech made at New Haven, in Connecticut, in March last. 



]^0 ORATION. 



with those they were themselves determined to persevere in. I 
must pass over all this, in order to go at once to the facts. Do 
they bear out this remarkable construction of their motives ? If 
they do, then we must abandon their defence, and claim for the 
present generations in America, bad as they may be, the merit 
of being, at least, better than their fathers- 

The Declaration of Independence was made on the 4th of July 
1776. The men who signed it all represented communities in 
which persons were held as slaves. The question is, did they, 
when making that declaration, suppose that it would have any 
effect in chandno; their relations to those slaves. 

And in answering this question, let me first of all consider the 
position of the writer of the paper. He represented the Colony 
of Virginia, largely holding slaves. What did Mr. Jefferson 
mean should be done with them after Independence was de- 
clared ? Let his own account of himself answer the question. — 
On the 2d of September, that is less than two months after the 
Declaration, he resigned his seat in the Continental Congress in 
order to take his place in the Legislature of his State, which he 
did on the 7th of October. " I knew," these are his words, 
" that our legislation, under the regal government, had many 
very vicious points, which urgently required reformation, and I 
thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work." And 
so he changed his position, as he says in another place, " to 
adapt our whole code to our republican form of government. — 
Early, therefore, I moved and presented a bill for the revision of 
the laws, which was passed on the 24th of October ; and on the 
5th of November, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George Mason, 
Thomas L. Lee and myself, were appointed a committee to exe- 
cute the work." 

This committee met, and apportioned the labor to the respective 

members. Mr. Jefferson had his share, and in that share fell the 

revision of the laws respecting slaves. Again I quote his own 

words : 

" The bill on the subject of slaves, was a mere digest of the existing laws 
respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general 



ORATION. 11 



emancipation. It was thoug-ht better that this should be kept back, and 
attempted only by ivay of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought 
on. The principles of the amendment, however, were agreed on, that is to 
say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age." 

Now I ask whether Mr. JefFerson did not imagine that his own 
written testimony in the declaration did not pledge him to change 
the personal or political relations of the slaves. We see how 
earnestly and how immediately he apphed himself to the work. 
It is very true, that in writing the account of it forty-five years 
afterwards, and explaining the reason why it was not done, he 
adds that " it was found the public mind would not yet bear the 
proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day." But he goes 
on to utter these most significant words : " Yet the day is not 
distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. — 
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that 
these people are to hefreeP 

Turning from this overwhelming testimony to the intent of the 
writer of the celebrated paper, let me now proceed to consider 
how its doctrine was applied in a wholly different section of the 
country. Out in the extreme north lived a community refusing 
to consider itself as within the jurisdiction of any of the thirteen 
States, and anxious to set up a separate government of its own, 
under which the people desired to be recognized as making an 
additional member of the confederacy. To this end, on the 2d 
day of July, 1777, just a year from the adoption of the resolu- 
tion for independence, their delegates agreed upon a constitution 
and a bill of rights. The first article of that bill closely follows 
the Declaration itself, to wit : 

" That all men are born eqally free and independent, and have certain nat- 
ural, inherent and inalienable rights, among which are the enjoying and 
defending life and liberty ; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, 
and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety," 

So far, the rule is in substance as taught on the 4th of July 
of the year before. But now comes the application. 

" Therefore," [I beg you to mark that word therefore ; it means ' for the 
reason above given,'] " no male person born in this country, or brought from 
over sea, ought to be holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave 
or apprentice, after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years ; nor female, 



J 2 ORATION. 



in like manner, after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are 
bound by their own consent, after they anrive to such age, &c., &c." 

Now I respectfully ask, did not the people -who drew this 
paper imagine that the Declaration was to change the personal 
or political relations of the slaves ? They and their descendants 
established what is now known as the noble State of Vermont, 
and from that day of small things down to the present, in all 
the vicissitudes of their government, they have never ceased to 
be true to their primal pledge. They have construed the Dec- 
laration of 1776 not as a word but as a thing. 

Of Massachusetts I trust I need not say much in this presence. 
You all know that her bill of rights prefixed to the Constitution 
of 1780, contains substantially the same article already quoted, 
excepting that it is not followed by a " therefore^ But if the 
framers of the instrument did not themselves make the applica- 
tion, the Courts of the Commonwealth very soon supplied the 
deficiency. Slavery was never abolished here by law, because 
they decided that it could not exist in the face of these significant 
words in the Constitution. In New Hampshire and Connecticut 
the same consequences followed from direct legislation. Pennsyl- 
vania moved early, but did not complete her operation until a 
comparatively late period. " As to our law for the gradual abo- 
lition of slavery," said Timothy Matlack, a worthy and influential 
old citizen of that State, in 1817, " it was an expression of the will 
of the majority of the people, in support of the great first princi- 
ple of our government, ' All men are born free and equal ;' and 
that majority has increased to a magnitude that promises unani- 
mity." Rhode Island prohibited slavery by law in 1784, the 
year after the peace. New York followed suit in 1799, and 
New Jersey added her testimony to the rest in the year 1804. 
And yet we are told that our fathers did not imagine that that 
Declaration of 1776 was to change the personal or political rela- 
tions of their slaves ! 

But, in order to complete this picture, it is necessary to go 
back once more to the action of Mr. Jefferson, and to show that 
his intentions were not limited to the sphere of the State of Vir- 



OKATION. • ig 



ginia. So far from it, they were on the broadest scale of na- 
tionahty. So early as 1774, in the paper which he drew up as 
a form of instructions to the first delegates from Virginia to the 
Continental Congress, — a paper afterwards published under the 
title of " A smnmary view of the rights of British America," — 
he expressly said that " the abolition of domestic slavery is the 
great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily 
introduced in their infant state," — that is to say, all over the 
country, from end to end. Now, to show that this was no mere 
profession in him, let me remind you of what he did where he felt 
he had the authority, even under the restricted powers of the 
confederation. After the cession by Virginia of her western ter- 
ritory had closed up the great division among the States on the 
subject of their rights to indefinite extension, and had vested the 
title to these lands in the United States, Mr. Jefferson lost not a 
moment in moving a committee in Congress, for the purpose of 
organizing a form of government for the ceded country. This 
committee was appointed, and consisted of Mr. Jefferson himself, 
Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. Howell of Rhode Island, all 
three representing States where slavery yet existed, although in 
Rhode Island it was then on the point of abolition. Yet this 
committee soon afterwards reported a plan, based upon five prop- 
ositions, the fifth and last of which was to this effect : that " after 
the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise 
than in punishment of crimes." For this provision sixteen out 
of twenty-three members of the Congress present recorded their 
votes. And even when counted by States, only three out of the 
eleven present voted against it. It then failed only by reason of 
a rule of order regulating the mode of putting the question ; and 
it would have succeeded, even in spite of that, but for the ab- 
sence of a single person who would have given effect to the affirm- 
ative vote of New Jersey. But so decided was the sentiment on 
this subject, that delay only had the effect of concentrating it 
with more earnestness. A few months later, the same provision, 
in an amended form, making the operation of the prohibition im- 



14 



ORATION. 



mediate, instead of postponing it until 1800, was adopted by a 
unanimous vote, and thus did it happen that to the instigation of 
the author of the Declaration of Independence himself, the mag- 
nificent territory west of the Ohio owes its present ability to bow 
without hesitation to the force of the self-evident maxims which 
he had inserted in it with his own hand. 

From this exposition I think I have succeeded in rescuing the 
fame of the fathers from the imputation that they were proclaim- 
ing a doctrine for others, upon which they never designed to 
practice themselves. So far from it, the fact seems to me unde- 
niable that, down to a certain period, the effort to carry out the 
principle over the whole land by changing the relation of the 
slave, was energetic, constant and successful. After that time, 
it is true, and I am ready frankly to confess it, there came a 
marked difference in the public mind. The force of the Declara- 
tion seems to have in a degree exhausted itself. The acquisition 
of an immense additional territory adapted to slave labor, in 
conjunction with the invention of machinery facilitating the devel- 
opement of the culture of a new staple everywhere producible 
in the southern portion of it, raised up barriers to the farther 
progress of the old doctrine, which have proved more and more 
impassable with time. Instead of advance, we see multiplied the 
proofs of retrogression, until now, when the propositions once 
recognized as of universal application, are either cautiously lim- 
ited or else flatly and totally denied. And we are gravely told, 
by a distinguished and discriminating slaveholder, that when our 
fathers advocated principles which they honestly beheved would 
last forever, they had no idea of the extent to which the crop of 
cotton could be carried by slave labor in America, or they would 
forever have held their peace !* 

Fellow citizens, this is not the first time that man has listened 
to the charm of the siren, and lost, in the grosser delights of 
sense, all consciousness of the high elevation to which it is his 
mission to aspire. What says the poet : 

*Seetheopeningof the speech of Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, 14th March, 1860. 



ORATION. 15 

" The steep ascent must be with toil subdued ; 
WatcIiing'S and cares must win the lofty prize 
Proposed by Heaven : true bliss and real good." 

The cotton that represents uncompensated labor, will neve^' 
bring money that can purchase undisturbed sleep to its possessor. 
It is not for us, fallible creatures that we are, to condemn our 
brethren for errors which, under similar temptations, we might 
be equally liable to commit ourselves. But whilst we may make 
suitable allowances for them, it would be inexcusable in us, in 
our situation, to be deluded by their sophistry, or to be led to 
copy their example. The diflficulty now is that there are men 
among us — yes, men of ability, learning and character, too, 
which might adorn any station, — who are busily engaged in dis- 
seminating these heresies as truth, — who are trying to make you 
believe that the Declaration of Independence is a sham, and that 
the world was made to breed slaves. This very heresy that I 
have now been exposing to you, fundamentally subversive as it is 
of every pohtical principle which you have been taught from your 
childhood, had its origin, indeed, in the slave producing regions, 
but it now pervades the American atmosphere far beyond those 
limits. It is repeated, commented upon, justified and expounded 
boldly before crowds of listening freemen, with all the powers of 
logic and all the arts of eloquence. It is settling into the convic- 
tions of extensive associations -of people originally gathered for 
the love of very opposite sentiments. It finds lodgment in the 
trembling bosoms of the wealthy in our commercial cities, who, 
in their study of the rise and fall of stocks, dread most of all to 
be perplexed with fear of change. Wherever it may go, it car- 
ries with it poison to freedom. It emasculates the strongest citi- 
zen, by teaching him that force is God's highest law, to which, 
when once established, his obedience in all cases is a duty. It 
prepares him in very truth for the advent of that grim image, 
armed to the teeth in steel and mounted on a fiery charger, al- 
ready prefigured to us in the declamation of the orator upon 
whose argument I have been commenting, before the thunders of 
whose cannon all hearts shall quail, and what remains of the man- 
liness of freedom shall be crushed from oS" the face of the land. 



IQ ORATION. 



And this brings me to speak of a third doctrine, even more 
prevalent than the others, equally sustained by high authority, 
and yet in my behef not less destructive to the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence than either of its predecessors. 

It is seriously maintained that the duty of the people of the 
United States is to take no note whatever of the growth and the 
spread of slavery, but to give free leave to every person or asso- 
ciation of persons to establish it if they like, in any new spot within 
the jurisdiction of the United States that they may choose to 
select. In other words, if a new community shall think fit to 
apply in practice the doctrines of the Declaration, and make 
freedom the rule of society, so let it be. But if, on the other 
hand, it shall determine in favor of the law of force, subjecting 
one man and his progeny to labor for another man and his 
progeny without compensation to the end of time, then let that 
law prevail without interference and without complaint. 

Now, if the principles of the Declaration be really self-evident 
truth, then is slavery a great evil, a flagrant violation of the rights 
of man, a gross outrage upon the fundamental maxims, for the 
establishment of which, in their own favor, our fathers fought 
and bled. The logical consequence necessarily is, that if we 
follow the recommendation not to intervene where we have the 
power to prevent it, if we suffer a community under our sanction, 
upon territory under our jurisdiction, to establish slavery, merely 
because it chooses to exact service without paying for it, then we, 
with our eyes open, consent to and approve of an act which we 
know and admit to be a flagrant violation of the rights of man, 
and a gross departure from the principles which our fathers, 
many of them, laid down their lives to establish. 

Is this such a position as conscientious people ought to take ? 
Do they not, by permitting the commission of a great offence, 
under circumstances in which they could prevent it if they would, 
make the criminal act of others their own ? 

Perhaps the force of this proposition may be better under- 
stood by a slight change in the mode of illustration. It is well 



ORATION. 17 



known that in one of the territories belonging to the United 
States a form of society has been established in which, among 
many eccentric practices, the right of a man to a plurality of 
wives has been engrafted upon the religious code. This is not a 
novel institution in the history of the world. It dates back in 
antiquity quite as far as the practice of holding man in slavery, 
and is quite as well fortified by scripture example. Even at this 
day it is well settled law in a large portion of the Eastern world. 
Neither can it be pretended that' as a pure question of morals it 
is open to any more condemnation, or that the bad consequences 
to society are any more serious than those entailed by the toler- 
ation of slavery. If then we are to permit the one without 
remonstrance in regions where we might prohibit it, why are we 
not just as much bound to sanction the other, provided the people 
like it ? If the doctrine of non-intervention be sound in regard 
to slavery, why not likewise in regard to polygamy too ? 

But let me now carry you one step farther and relate what 
once happened in the territory of Judea. We are told by the 
historian that in the midst of that country there sprang up an 
association with a recognized chief and a social organization, one 
of whose customs was quite peculiar. They were called, in 
Latin, Sicarii, that is, stabbers ; and their practice was to 
assassinate such of their neighbors as circumstances seemed to 
render fitting in their eyes at the moment. To that end they 
carried with them short daggers with which they inflicted a fatal 
wound so adroitly that not even the nearest bystander could 
detect the perpetrator of the deed. In this way they succeded 
in murdering even the high priest while sacrificing at the altar 
in the temple at Jerusalem. And the Jewish community, finding 
itself helpless to apply a remedy to this arbitrary practice, 
appealed to the authority of the Roman Governor to intervene 
and put a stop to it. 

Now supposing that at Rome it had been announced by some 
high and leading senator that it would be dangerous to the peace 
of the nation to take any steps to prohibit this custom ; that the 
true rule was to let every community do in respect to such mat 



18 



ORATION. 



ters just what it might prefer. If they disliked the practice of 
private assassination enough to prohibit it, why let them do so. 
If, on the contrary, they thought it a wholesome institution, so let 
it be. In short, suppose this noble legislator had proclaimed that 
non-intervention was the great conservative key to all statesman- 
ship. Let us once more imagine that we can transfer all 
this state of things from the province of Judea to a territory of 
the United States, and from the city of Rome to the city of 
Washington, and then I demand of you to answer me, how shall 
we stand released from our solemn responsibilities to the feeble 
settlers gathering under the shelter of the national protection, by 
the declaration that the attempt to intervene, to save them from 
danger, can only be done at the hazard of a greater danger to 
the Union, and therefore that nothing should be done at all. The 
pretence is as false to the country as the doctrine is treacherous 
to the rights of man. There can be no greater danger to the 
Union than the refusal to fulfil the duties which are incumbent 
alike upon all. There can be no greater shock to society than 
the denial of those benefits, the security of which constitutes its 
greatest value. If the obligation of the individual be obedience, 
that of the government is protection. In no social state con- 
ceivable can there be a release from this Siamese twin connection. 
It is not then possible to shift ofi" the responsibility by a mere act 
of the will. It must co-exist with the relation, and it can termi- 
nate only by the annihilation of the conditions under which it was 
originally formed. 

Let us not then seek to avoid the difficulties attending the full 
recognition of the terms of our first compact of Union, by the 
timid plea of non-intervention.. The mission of this people is to 
teach the value of well regulated liberty to the world. Let us 
not leave the solution of what remains unaccomplished of the 
experiment to chance, or caprice, or to malevolent opposition. 
We claim no right to interpose in the policy of existing States 
whether foreign or domestic. Let each manage its afiairs in its 
own way. With the power to control, it must be presumed to 
possess the wisdom to correct whatever may be found amiss with- 



ORATION. 



19 



in its jurisdiction. But in all cases of inchoate organization, so 
long as the authority shall remain vested in the general govern- 
ment, intervention for the correction of present or for the pre- 
vention of future social evils is not only a right but a solemn 
duty. Without it we may be but nursing the scorpion that will 
ultimately destroy ourselves. We may be only sowing the seed 
of dragon's teeth to raise a crop of warriors armed for the sub- 
jection of the world. 

Let me now occupy a moment in recapitulating the three 
heresies to Liberty, which it has been my aim to combat on this 
particular anniversary. They are 

First, the assumption that the right of property is the first 
object of all human government, and that our revolution was 
provoked by a slight invasion of it. 

This belittles all that was manly and heroic in the struggle by 
making it centre in a miserable selfishness. 

Secondly, the pretence that a declaration of principles, purport- 
ing to be of the most universal application, was really intended 
by our fathers of 1776 for the benefit only of themselves of the 
white race, when in danger of the same kind of forcible subjection 
from abroad, which they reserved to exercise forever afterwards 
over their weaker brethren at home. 

This at once impeaches the good faith of the patriots, and 
dishonors us their progeny for attempting to pass them ofi" before 
the world as honest men. 

Thirdly, the abnegation of the right of intervention to prevent 
the establishment of dangerous or vicious institutions within the 
jurisdiction of a government. 

This undermines all sense of responsibility in statesmen for 
the consequences of their inaction in difficult conjunctures ; and 
puts at hazard the security of life, liberty and happiness, for 
which governments were instituted among men. 

Fellow citizens, mark here what I say to you in truth and 
soberness. All these three heresies spring from one and the 
same source. They are the ofispring of fear to meet the slave 
question in the face. It is this which perverts the feelings, which 
chills the hearts, and which obfuscates the intellects of some of the 
most exalted of the land. It is this which raises the mighty current 
of reaction, that threatens to back the stream of Liberty from its 
natural and genial flow over the entire surface of the republic. 

Do you ask me what I would have you do in this emergency ? 
I trust I do not underestimate the magnitude of the power that 



20 ORATION. 



is bearing so hard upon the vital springs of freedom in America, 
when I say, that by energy, by perseverance, and above all by 
union among yourselves in the support of established truth, you 
may yet resist it all. To use the words of an old Enghsh poet, 

" We claim no power, when heresies grow bold, 
To coin new faith, but still declare the old." 

The object to be attained is the revival to its fullest strength of 
that sentiment imbibed from the Declaration of '76, which began 
to fail so early as 1808, and which has exercised little real influ- 
ence in the direction of public affairs ever since. To this end the 
celebrations of this Anniversary may be useful, provided they be 
suitably improved. But if gotten up merely to chant a hollow 
lip-service to the image of past perfections, without the heart to 
meet any present emergency, they are worse than worthless. — 
For their tendency is only to deceive, by the appearance of devo- 
tion to a duty that is never done. Trust me, the principles of 
human Liberty are not safe until you inscribe them in letters of 
living light on the portals of your Capital city — until you inspire 
your government with a love not simply of abstractions on parch- 
ment, but of realities in the seats of influence and power — until 
you animate your political warriors to blow a trumpet that carries 
no uncertain sound. It is the characteristic of the nineteenth 
century, above that of any of its predecessors, that governments 
are directed by opinion. They bow to the sentiment of the peo- 
ple. Now what sort of a*sign is it in America, when the seat of 
your national government makes no cordial response to your most 
approved doctrines of liberty ? when the men whom you put on 
the highest pedestals of oSice turn their backs to the true deity* 
you have been ever taught to reverence, and worship a gloomy 
idol, the relic of a barbarous mythology ? Whose fault is it that 
these things are so ? Whose fault is it that the leaders are timid 
and halting and equivocating and treacherous in their service ? 
Is it theirs ? I answer, No, not altogether. They are not afraid 
of their adversaries. They are afraid o^you. They tremble lest 
enough of you should desert, or grow lukewarm, or listen to false 
and designing teachers, to bring on their defeat. If you can be 
depended upon to be firm, persevering, inflexible and united, there 
will be no need of farther care for the issue. The victory -is al- 
ready won ; and the banner of freedom will soon again float proud- 
ly over the battlements of the State, once more the emblem of an 
honest and a consistent peoplewj t> O Q ^ 

*At the right hand of the speaker stood a beautiful young girl with the dress and in- 
signia appropriate to the goddess of Liberty, whilst arranged on each side were thirty- 
three more representing the respective States of the Union. 




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